


Assignation

by K (Thiswasmydesign)



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: CIA, F/M, First Meeting, Gen, Guns, Threats of Violence, kidnap, mafia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thiswasmydesign/pseuds/K
Summary: Halle had met Mello before he showed up in her apartment in Japan. As a talented agent, she had been trailing the mafia for several weeks, alerted to something big happening by the sudden change in their usual patterns of crime.A short fic about how I would imagine this first encounter.





	Assignation

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry it isn't one of my bigger fics, as I'm still battling writer's block. Just a short fic again to get myself writing. Thank you for your patience.

Although it was night, there was nothing ominous about the darkness. The street lights were sufficient to rid the area of any long shadows, illuminating all of the possible hiding places and giving Halle a clear view in every direction from where she waited, poised to act, in her car.

They had been watching this particular band of mafia intermediates for some time, her and the CIA group she worked with. Trailing them whenever they could catch up with them, just waiting for them to make one wrong move so that they could be captured and put in jail, but this group were good. Not once in all of the weeks they had followed had they been caught in the act, not for any sort of crime that would see them in prison for long enough. Sure, there was the solicitation of prostitutes and the petty drug use but in all they appeared, on the surface at least, to be minor criminals.

Halle knew otherwise. The group did commit far worse crimes, or at least they had in days gone by. It was almost as if they had changed their goals, no longer engaging in turf wars and the associated murders that went along with them. This particular group seemed to work with a single minded purpose and it had all started with _him._

They called him Mello, and he was not the type she would ever have imagined seeing with such a gang. The slight young man could not have been out of his teenage years – eighteen, perhaps, at a push. He dressed in leather and furs and long boots, and the mafia didn’t seem to be worried about prejudices that he might ruin their tough image even though he looked, frankly, effeminate at times.

He was always there, hovering around the edges of their gang, except when important things were happening he would make a move. A few short words, a bite of the chocolate that he never seemed to be without, and the gang would stop whatever argument they were having and settle into their tasks, whatever those may be.

Mello may not be the mob boss but it was apparent to her that he was a pivotal piece in the puzzle, and potentially a weak link. He was physically weakest, and he only ever had the one gun shoved in the top of his boot, which she had never seen him pull. What was more, he rarely spent the night at the mafia headquarters, preferring instead to go to his own home, wherever that may be.

Halle had tried to follow him, more than once, on foot or motorcycle or by car, but she had never been able to keep up. He never rushed, never seemed to know she was following and yet still managed to give her the slip.

That was why tonight, in the bright lights of this particular street, she still wasn’t getting her hopes up until the back door of her car opened and a figure slipped in.

“This isn’t a taxi…” she began but was silenced by the unmistakable feeling of a barrel of a gun pressed to the side of her head.

“Drive.”

A snap of chocolate. She swallowed nervously. How had he managed to sneak up to her? Had he even been sneaky about it, or had it just been luck that she had been looking the wrong way at the wrong time, and he had just marched right up to the car and got in? That seemed more like him.

Still, it would do her no good to show her nerves. She turned the key, switched on the engine and tried when reaching for the gear stick to subtly push the recording button on her specially made dashboard.

“None of that now,” he didn’t sound impressed, or agitated. His tone was bored, lazy. “This is between me and you. Now, drive.”

“Where to?” she questioned since she had very little choice. She had never seen him use that gun before, but there must be a reason why the mafia valued him so much and she doubted they would respect him if he was afraid to use it.

“Your flat,” he ordered simply. The pressure of metal left her skull and she glanced in the mirror to see that he had sprawled comfortably out across the back seat, gun still pointed at her head but from a distance now.

There were many things she wanted to say, wanted to ask, but with a gun pointed at her head that would not be wise. The best she could do for now was to drive and hope that the CIA were actually doing their jobs that night and noticed the anomaly in her vehicle tracking. Once they saw that they would realise she had left her location without reporting in, and they would come after her. If not she needed a plan to get herself out of this. She had her own gun of course but by the time she would be able to reach it she would surely already be dead.

“If you could stop hyperventilating that would be good,” Mello rolled his eyes, snapping off another square of chocolate with his teeth. Halle scowled; she was not hyperventilating. Her adrenaline was up, she was breathing maybe just a tiny bit more quickly but that was natural. She was perfectly calm, focused. “It could be worse. They’ve had a sniper on you all evening.”

“Then why wouldn’t they have just shot?” she wondered aloud, not believing him.

“I told them you would be useful. You will be useful to us,” he snapped off more chocolate. “Won’t you?”

“Never,” she defied, running a red light because she had seen a police car approaching the junction and thought he might provide the distraction she needed to get out of this. The policeman must have been going off shift, since he completely ignored her recklessness and continued on his merry way. She wondered if Mello had any way to know if she just drove them the wrong way, so she turned left instead of right at the next junction.

The safety clicked off the gun.

“Behave,” he scolded. “I would really rather not spoil that pretty shirt of yours with bloodstains. Versace on a CIA pay check? You must be good at your job.”

Halle had been extremely pleased with herself when she had found this shirt in a charity shop, sans label. They clearly hadn’t known what they had, but she had recognised it straight away. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that this extraordinarily dressed young man would recognise it as she had.

She turned the car around at the next opportunity, resisting breathing a sigh of relief as the safety clicked back on the gun. This time when she glanced back in the mirror he had also dropped it into his lap, though it was still in his hand, but she still thought he would have shot her before she could get her own weapon.

How had he known she was going the wrong way? Had he followed her home one day? Had he read it in her body language, in an unconscious catch in her breathing? No, he was good but he couldn’t be that good… could he?

“Trackers are easy to hack,” he answered her unspoken question. “It’s back at the restaurant by the way, in case you were wondering why your colleagues were so slow on the uptake.”

How would he have had the chance to remove the tracker from her car? She hadn’t left the vehicle all night. There was no way… but still, she didn’t think he would bother lying. They were nearly there, nearly at her flat and she wondered if he would pick up on it if she were to drive straight past.

“Pull as close to the door as you can,” he instructed lazily, gathering himself up out of his comfortable slouch, the gun still there and ready. She didn’t try to drive past, pulling in to the car park and taking up a disabled space so that she could follow his instruction.

She tried to get out of the car in such a way that would allow her hand to reach her gun, but when she did she found her holster at her hip to be empty. Glancing in to the back seat she spotted it on the floor. She didn’t know how he had managed to get it, presumably with his feet since they were at that end of the car, without her feeling it. It was her only weapon and now she was doomed. She had to do as he said; if he killed her, at least he had now been caught on the building’s security camera. Small comfort.

“What now?” she questioned once she had led the way up the stairs and into her flat, Mello taking up a lounging position on the couch. He gestured with the gun for her to sit in an armchair nearby before, to her astonishment, tossing the gun on to the coffee table and taking another bite of his chocolate.

“You are very good at your job, Halle Bullock,” he complimented. She eyed the gun, calculating whether she would be able to get to it first. She was slightly further away, but he was slouched so it would be a slower spring for him than for her. “Good enough to attract our attention.”

“Then I am bad at my job,” she scowled. Since her job was to be invisible, watching them, what he said was more of an insult.

“Not at all,” he impressed still instead. “If your colleagues were not so obvious on other nights, we would not have noticed you watching us. Even I would have struggled.”

“You think highly of yourself,” she was quite sure she would be able to reach the gun first. The question was what she could do once she got it. She didn’t want to shoot him, didn’t have enough evidence on him to prove that it would be justifiable in any way and it wouldn’t be self defence since if she had his gun he would be unarmed. If she got the gun she could take him in, but he was clever. He might just be able to talk his way out of any charges. She needed more, needed to be able to record him or prove that he meant her harm.

“Rightly,” he shrugged. “You’re thinking about taking the gun?”

Her gaze snapped up from its glance downwards as she startled, cursing herself for being so obvious.

“Go ahead,” he waved his chocolate towards the weapon. “If it will make you feel better.”

Better to take the gun and remove it from the equation, then, even if there was nothing she could do with it. She leaned forwards and hesitated a second, expecting him to stop her, before taking the gun.

She frowned at it almost immediately. It didn’t feel right in her hand, too light.

“It’s not loaded,” he bit into his chocolate. “Check, if you like.”

She did, opening the barrel and finding no bullets. The old-style pistol was ornate, the detailing on it perfect. It almost looked like it might never have been fired. It was functional but it looked more like a costume piece.

“You brought me here with an unloaded gun?”

“Well since I didn’t intend to shoot you, I thought I wouldn’t waste the bullets.”

Halle found herself setting the gun back down on the coffee table, some of the adrenaline leaving her and allowing her to think more clearly.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I told you, you’re going to help us,” he studied her intently. “What do you know of our purpose?”

“Well, the mafia have been…”

“Our current purpose,” he interrupted her scripted answer. The truth was no one had been able to figure out what the mafia were doing since their habits had changed all of a sudden. Could she admit that? Would it be worse if she lied?

“That is what we’re trying to figure out,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Admirable,” he allowed. “But there are more important things you could be working on.”

“Usually when the mafia goes quiet like this they’re planning something big,” she explained. “We have to take notice.”

“Something big,” he echoed. “Well, you could say that.”

“Then what…?” she didn’t expect him to just come out and say it. Monologues of evil plans were something that only happened in the movies.

“We’re going after Kira,” he told her honestly.

“Pardon?”

“We’re going after Kira,” he frowned at her. “Are you alright? Do you need some chocolate?”

“I… no, I’m fine,” she shook her head to clear it. Goodness. That was not what she had expected. Not in her wildest dreams. “Kira?”

“Yes,” he still held out the chocolate. She looked at the bite marks in the end but broke off a square so that he would take it back. His reaching over the gun, even though she knew it wasn’t loaded, made her nervous. “Why would the mob want to take on Kira?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Halle cursed herself. It was the first question that came to mind, but the answer really was obvious. The mafia were an organised crime network and if Kira was killing criminals they would be on the list sooner or later.

“What do you think I can do for you?” she questioned more sensibly.

“The CIA are joining with other organisations to create a taskforce, the SPK,” he told her. This she knew from whispers around the office, but it was highly confidential at this point. She was surprised that even Mello would know. “At the head of the SPK is an old friend of mine. We grew up together but we… grew apart.”

There was more of a story there that he wasn’t telling her, but she didn’t dare ask. “So the mafia are going to work with the SPK?”

“Not with, exactly, more like… parallel to,” he explained. “And to remain parallel, so that we don’t get in each other’s way, I need someone on the inside. I’m going to need you to volunteer for the Special Provision for Kira.”

“Oh,” she blinked. “Why do you think I would help you?”

“I’m not asking for the world, just a little information now and then. Our goals align; the CIA and the mafia both want Kira captured and executed. Whether you know it or not, it wouldn’t be the first time the two have worked together.”

It was a carefully but poorly secured secret that the CIA and the mafia had some dealings throughout the years, some occasions when single agents in most cases had created deals between the two. This though… this was on a grand scale, something that she couldn’t be comfortable with.

“If it helps, having observed you for the past fortnight I can tell you are a capable agent who would be an asset to the SPK and their operations,” Mello assured her. “Any information you would provide would not be used to inconvenience them in any way, only to prevent us stepping on each other’s toes. And, if it helps, you are welcome to ask the leader of the SPK – only the leader, mind – whether he minds you passing on information to me.”

“And if he does?”

“Then you stop,” Mello agreed. “I am confident he will not protest.”

Halle hesitated, seeing all the ways this could go very wrong for her but also the possibilities. She had been thinking about putting her name forward for the SPK, had been comfortable that she would be up to the task and didn’t have family to worry about if Kira got her. She was nervous that she might die, but that was always an occupational hazard in her line of work. If what Mello said was true, and there really was a connection there, she might be helping to catch Kira by passing on information.

She suspected he wouldn’t take no for an answer anyway.

“Alright,” she agreed. “I’ll do it.”

“Good,” Mello reached in to a leather pocket and pulled out another bar of chocolate, offering it out to her like giving a dog a treat as a reward. She took it all the same.

“What now?”

Would he leave, now that she had agreed? Did he have more to say to her? Perhaps he would fit her flat with bugs, cameras and wire taps. He did none of those things.

“Now I’m going to take a shower,” he grinned, sitting up. “Where I’m staying is great, but the water pressure is shit.”

“Take a shower?” she echoed, puzzling over the strange man.

“That’s what I said,” he stretched, several joints clicking. His black shirt rode up, revealing a flat stomach and a piercing. There was a tattoo, disappearing beneath the low waist band of his leather trousers, but she could not figure out what it was. It drew her eye in; she almost thought it looked like the top of a jigsaw puzzle piece. Once he was done he scowled at her. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve had quite a shock.”

“I’m fine,”

He appraised her a few moments longer, then shrugged, headed further into the flat.

“I’ll go after the shower,” he told her. “You’re welcome to join me, if you like.”

“To go to the mafia?” she startled.

“In the shower,” he grinned, winking back over his shoulder.

He left the room and she was on her feet in an instant, rushing for her phone. To call the CIA, to get reinforcements so that they could help her and catch him… except, what would she say? Really, he wasn’t doing anything wrong any more – true, he had made her drive with a gun to her head as a threat, but it hadn’t even been loaded and he had a good purpose for it.

She didn’t call anyone in the end, and she didn’t take him up on his offer of joining him in the shower either, though if she nipped in to the bathroom to check that there were enough towels and tried to get a peak of what that tattoo was she couldn’t be blamed for it.


End file.
